


mind the upholstery

by maggie



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:27:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22284100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggie/pseuds/maggie
Summary: Tommy can be very particular. Not overly perceptive, though.
Relationships: Tommy Shelby/Alfie Solomons
Comments: 6
Kudos: 85
Collections: Sholomons Prompt Fest 2019





	mind the upholstery

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [boundinshallows (museme87)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/museme87/pseuds/boundinshallows) in the [Sholomons_Prompt_Fest_2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Sholomons_Prompt_Fest_2019) collection. 



> **Prompt:** : You keep stealing my favourite chair at my favourite coffee house, I’m starting to think you’re doing it just to annoy me and I swear I’m gonna just sit on your lap if you keep doing it

“I don’t see your name on it, mate,” Alfie said with a smile that curled his fat mouth up at the corners like they were in Wonderland and Tommy immediately felt a surge of schadenfreude, which was the sole reason he didn’t hate Alfie entirely because schadenfreude was pretty much his favourite emotion of all time.

Leaning down -- close enough to smell the cardamom-cinnamon scent of Alfie’s chai in its paper cup with his name scrawled on it, bloody irresponsible, he didn’t even bring a reusable one -- Tommy tapped one finger on the arm of the chintz-upholstered armchair. Alfie stared serenely up at him. 

Tommy grabbed Alfie’s free hand and shoved his fingertips along the side of the armrest, where there resided a raised set of letters done in thick embroidery. “That’s my name,” he announced, triumph somewhat dimmed by Alfie’s thoughtful expression as he felt the letters out and didn’t bother to look.

“I do apologize, then, Quanny--”

“Fucking Esme never did take to cursive properly, it’s _Tommy_ \--”

“--but there was no reason I’d know that, was there?” Alfie nodded at the deep blue leather armchair that sat nearby. “Why don’t you try that one? I’m already good and set right where I am, and that one’s free. You know what they say about possession and the law, yeah?”

“That one doesn’t have my name on it,” Tommy said, and Ada at that moment bawled from the counter, “TOMMIEEEEEE!” as if he wouldn’t be able to hear her above the smooth world beats wafting from the speakers. Tommy held up a finger. “To be continued,” he said, and went to fetch his coffee in its environmentally correct metal cylindrical cup that netted him a sixty-cent discount when his sister or brother-in-law weren’t barista-ing (Ada and Ben, so long as he stuck to drip or teabags, let him drink for free, and Tommy liked free better than he liked latte).

“Why are you harassing Alfie Solomons?” Ada hissed, grabbing Tommy’s sleeve and making him slop dark roast onto the counter. They both made the same frustrated noise, Ada grabbed a rag and dropped it, and Tommy wiped and mopped as she continued, “He’s a brilliant tipper and he runs a _brillianter_ bakery and Ben and me want to get him to partner with us so we can cross-promote our merchandise!”

“Ben and you need to stop coming up with sales euphemisms for your kinky bedroom games,” Tommy said, wiping the bottom of his cup as he weathered Ada’s responding dirty look. 

“Honestly, Tommy,” she said, her tone turning a bit wheedling as she took his cup from him and topped it back up, “this could be really big for us. If he stocks our chai and tea and the ginger hot chocolate at his shop we’ll be set. Go make up with him.”

“Make up with him?” Tommy was affronted. “Why am I always the one in the wrong? He keeps sitting in _my_ chair! This isn’t the first time I’ve seen him! And he never moves, even though I--”

“You what? You’ve asked him to move before?”

“No! No. Ada, come on, I was brought up same as you, ay? To be polite even when somebody’s being a bit of a plum.” Tommy cast a narrow-eyed glare at Alfie, who had the nerve to be visibly enjoying his chai, moustache bristling over the plastic cup-lid as he thumbed gracefully against his mobile. “All I’ve done is sit across from him, uncomfortably, on the edge of my seat, and indicate with my eyes that I was waiting for that chair and would prefer it if he moved.”

Ada gave him a flat, rather tired look, and blinked heavily. “You’ve been coming into the shop on multiple occasions, sitting across from him, and eyeballing him. This is what you’re telling me.” She sighed as Tommy gave a _yes, and?_ sort of shrug, and handed him back his cup. “You’re hopeless. Go. Do what you want.”

Tommy capped his coffee and returned to the armchair area in a huff. Sometimes he had no idea what his sister was thinking. “All right,” he said to Alfie who apparently was a genius pastrymaker and held the buttery key to his sister and brother-in-law’s future success, “time to shift it. I want my chair. You can have the butch one.”

Alfie looked up at him, all round blue-grey eyes and round lips. “The butch one!” he repeated, gesturing at the leather chair with his phone. “Is that why you want this one? Because it makes you feel pretty?” Tommy scowled horrendously and Alfie tutted, giving his head a disappointed shake. “Narrow-mindedness, I call it,” Alfie said sorrowfully. “Assumption of the worst sort. What makes you think, Quanny--”

“ _Tommy._ ”

“--that I don’t also like to feel pretty? Hrrmm? Because I’ll have you know, with the right shade of lippie I look absolutely--”

He wasn’t able to expound any further on lip colour, because with a click of the tongue that was part resolute and part resigned, Tommy set himself in Alfie’s lap. Forcing Alfie to hold both his phone and his chai out of the way, his round eyes going even rounder and a little bit darker as Tommy sprawled his legs out to stabilize himself.

“Finally got around to actually making a move instead of staring at me every time I came in, eh?” Alfie said, bringing his wrist to rest against Tommy’s knee, turning off his mobile. “If that’s your usual method of flirting, darling, you’re in need of a refresher course.”

“I’m in need of having my head examined,” Tommy said. But then he rested his head against Alfie’s shoulder, nose brushing the other man’s collar, and Alfie shifted to bring him in closer and didn’t seem to mind at all. “You should be drinking out of a reusable cup,” Tommy remarked, because he couldn’t help himself even when somebody was being sweet to him. Alfie made a rumbling noise in his chest.

“But then you wouldn’t find out my name.” He held up his paper cup, and Tommy turned it and squinted at the black squiggle of handwritten name on it.

“I suppose you’re right,” Tommy said, and lifted his head with the faintest of smiles. “Lovely to meet you, Olgia.”

“Bloody cheek,” Alfie said, but by then Tommy was kissing him and finding his thoughts, with each taste of cardamom and cinnamon, straying to some cross-promotion of his own.


End file.
